Last week’s Partner Summit brought together thousands of Cisco partners, both onsite and virtually. We hope you had as much fun as we did!

John Chambers, our Chairman and CEO, also had a great experience at the summit and took time out to chat with the Channels blog team about his overall strategy and experience at the event. He shared his observations about the summit’s key takeaways for partners, including Cisco’s emphasis on being a partner-centric company, a clear vision of where the market is headed and a roadmap for execution, and a commitment to continuing to listen to partners.

“We are committed to our partners,” he said. “As a company that does 80 percent of business through our partners, that will not change.”

At Cisco, partners are part of our extended team, part of our company’s DNA, so we’d like to recognize the winners of our Partner Awards that Cisco executives announced during the Partner Summit Global Awards Reception last week. We’d also like to recognize the winners of our Quote Contest. Congratulations to all of our partners!

The momentum continues on the final day of Partner Summit in San Diego, bringing Catalyst discounts, additional Jabber news, advice on going from good to great, and more—so keep reading for all the details and a link to a handy document that contains all the news.

In this afternoon’s General Session, Keith Goodwin, SVP of our Worldwide Partner organization, introduced author and social scientist Jim Collins who gave a fascinating presentation centered on the day’s theme of Leadership.

He addressed the question of why some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and why others do not. He also talked about what differentiates “good” from “great.” His answers were based on nine years of research, including six books, which have sold more than ten million copies worldwide.

“The ‘x’ factor and essence of great leadership is not personality,” said Jim. “The ‘x’ factor is humility, combined with a ferocious will.” He also noted that great leaders—and great companies—pick people better than themselves to be on their teams, are tenacious about confronting brutal facts and realities, ask more questions than make statements, and see themselves as being in service for a cause.

A big thank you to our Partner Summit Partner Ambassador Bloggers for blogging throughout the week. This mighty group of bloggers from BCI, Compugen, Dimension Data, Force3, Logicalis, Presidio Networks, and Varrow shared their viewpoints throughout the event. Here are the most recent posts:

What a way to open an event! Cisco’s 16th Partner Summit began with partners filing into a packed auditorium to the Olympics theme song holding flags from their home countries—with more than 90 countries represented here this week. This year’s theme, “In It to Win It,” was especially apt given the news announced at today’s event.

Senior VP of the Worldwide Partner Organization Keith Goodwin welcomed live and virtual attendees, and then took everyone on a trip down memory lane, sharing recollections of the first time he presented at Cisco Partner Summit on the very same stage six years prior.

In addition to Keith, CEO John Chambers, EVP/COO Gary Moore, SVP Wendy Bahr, VP Andrew Sage, SVP Edison Peres, and SVP Nick Earle all addressed the audience, talking about Cisco’s accomplishments over the past year, and goals and priorities for the year ahead.

There was also plenty of news to share, with announcements about the Cisco Services Partner Program (our biggest Services announcement in 15 years, according to CRN, Enabling Architectures Sales Excellence, the Master Cloud Builder Specialization, the Partner Plus Incentive program, and much more. In addition, Edison shared his vision around the value that partners derive from their relationship with Cisco.

After today’s keynote, we caught up with a few partners to get their thoughts on the value they see in being a Cisco partner.

Our Partner Ambassador Bloggers have also been busy sharing their thoughts about this year’s Partner Summit. Be sure to check out their blogs:

This week in San Diego Cisco, partners from all over the world are converging to learn about the latest trends in IT organization, and latest solutions from Cisco at the Partner Summit 2012 ( follow on Twitter the hashtag #ciscops12)
If you are a Cisco partner, we hope that you plan to attend either physically or virtually. Check my previous blog for details on the data center program.

Let’s be real! Our great success in the Data Center relies mainly on this incredible ecosystem of talented professionals who believe in Cisco vision and products. These companies are bringing an unique value add, in building solutions designed specifically for more and more demanding IT customers – Customers under a lot of pressure to deploy solutions which are cost effective and extremely agile to meet the business requirements.

We recently met in London, one of our key partners ,Dimension Data. A perfect “Mise en Bouche ” just before the Cisco Partner Summit!

Dimension Data entered the data center networking market about 3 years ago and it has been the fastest growing area of our networking business over the past years . It is now a significant contributor to our business and because of that we will double our investment in this particular space. It allows us to grab business across the 50 countries that we operate in, and it also allows us to get far more strategic with our clients and build up the network platform inside the data center that enables our clients to achieve the savings and benefits and more exciting opportunities in the market. So we certainly will be investing far more in the space together with Cisco to execute better in the market. Watch Gary Middleton , Dimension Data Business Development Manager, share his satisfaction to work with Cisco in the data Center space.

To illustrate Gary’s statement, here is a perfect and recent example of the momentum created by Cisco and partners, when working together :

Finally! Partner Summit is just around the corner. The Cisco team is excited to see you in person, beginning on April 16 in sunny San Diego, California.

If you’re not going to be in San Diego, you can still attend virtually. Just tune in via Virtual Partner Summit (VPS), beginning on April 17. All you need to do is register.

So what are the big topics at Partner Summit? Cloud and Collaboration are definitely top of mind. There’ll also be some fantastic breakout sessions. Some of them include “The Virtualized Workspace—New Solutions and Programs” and “Get in the Driver’s Seat with Smart Services.” The smart services session is just one of Partner Summit’s business transformation sessions. Others feature Cisco’s evolving Partner Program portfolio and how to accelerate mid-market success.

You’ll hear keynotes and have the opportunity to participate in live chat with top executives and regional leaders such as John Chambers, Padmasree Warrior, Edison Peres, and Jim Sherriff, to name a few. You can also join your regional theater breakouts covering topics for all the geographies.

Watch the video from our Roving Reporter to get all the details you need.

Keep reading to find out more about our Partner Summit Ambassadors, our new Roving Reporter, how to win an iPad or snag a t-shirt, the must-have checklist to help you navigate the event, and more. Read More »

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